This fast-moving novel spotlights a smart woman's journey to find what she wants.
A woman with clear focus and ambitious career aspirations has a tough struggle to acknowledge the man she really loves.
Mikaela Marchand was a Black girl—now Black woman—with lofty goals. She’d been planning her departure from small-town Georgia all her life. She and her friend Julie Robertson, who’s White, went through grade school as besties; Julie, “bubbly, wholesome, ridiculously pretty,” and Mikaela with her “witheringly incisive gaze.” A senior prank in which they streaked across their high school football field landed them in the slammer just long enough for Mikaela to be booked by Cameron, a tall, lanky, impossibly good-looking White boy working his way through school. A romance ensues with this budding photographer, but Mikaela leaves Cameron for college and law school in the Big Apple. She’s just short of making partner in a fancy New York law firm and living with Rashad, a handsome Black pediatric resident, when her past comes back with the ferocity of a windstorm. This debut novel addresses what it's like to grow up with absent and deceased parents as well as the pressure on Black professionals to overperform while conforming to White norms. The harsh realities of Julie and Mikaela’s fractured friendship, Mikaela’s fraught relationship with her mother, and Mikaela’s inability to see Cameron for who he is are all developed with skill and empathy. Mikaela’s sister, Vanessa, pokes fun at her, providing pitch-perfect humor. Most of all, Mikaela travels a long road to stop hiding from her own emotions and needs. If the novel feels like it could have been shorter, with multiple moments that could have been stopping points, the payoff is the steamy sex, saved for the end.
This fast-moving novel spotlights a smart woman's journey to find what she wants.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-335-44882-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: HQN
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
This captivating, deeply emotional, and incredibly sexy romance is a balm for the soul.
A blossoming romance infringes on a successful businesswoman's professional aspirations, making her reevaluate her priorities.
At an exclusive party, talent manager Hendrix Barry has an instant connection with billionaire tech mogul Maverick Bell. When he learns that she’s navigating her mother’s Alzheimer's diagnosis, he relates to what she’s going through, having had similar experiences with his grandfather. Maverick makes Hendrix feel seen and understood like no one else, but he’s the recent ex-boyfriend of a woman Hendrix is going into business with as she works toward her goal of executive producing a television show. She tries to set boundaries that would keep him as a friend despite their obvious mutual attraction, but when he expresses interest in her venture capital fund focusing on Black women–led businesses, it leads to spending more time together, and the lines of friendship, business, and pleasure become tangled and blurred. Ryan excels at crafting thoughtful, mature characters who have to manage complicated situations with care and grace. Maverick’s dogged pursuit of Hendrix and the delicious ways he woos her using his wealth and persistence frame him as a determined, headstrong hero. Paired with a weaker heroine, he could have been overbearing, but Hendrix is his perfect match, equally as strong-willed and tenacious. They bring out each other’s softer, more vulnerable sides as well, and both have compassionate hearts. The spicy romance is the core of this satisfying story, but the novel doesn’t shy away from—and is made richer for the inclusion of—hardships like caring for an aging parent and confronting racism in the world of business. The tale also highlights the importance of community and the value of supportive, platonic love through the wonderful cast of side characters.
This captivating, deeply emotional, and incredibly sexy romance is a balm for the soul.Pub Date: May 13, 2025
ISBN: 9781538706855
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Forever
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
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